Saturday, September 9, 2017

Lead by four. Lose by six. Run off the field by a trade deadline seller, that started the evening at one game above .500.Two four-run cushions and our "ace" on the mound, and then... wow-factor embarrassment. On the Five Pineapple Scale of Yankee Fan Torture Porn, that's a four. Okay, I get it... everybody has a bad game now and then. But I ask you, how does one not feel like drinking Dewars and Draino after a game like last night in a season like this, where every omen feels like a sound truck in your neighborhood, ordering you to leave immediately?We keep waiting for Aaron Judge to wake up from his self-induced coma, and then we sense fleeting eye movement, a twitch of a finger here and there, and we tell ourselves it's a sign of hope. And then, there he is - watching a called strike three that bisects home plate the way the European model has Hurricane Irma skewering Florida.We keep waiting for Greg Bird to return and anchor the lineup, but - gulp - where the hell is he? Do the Yankees have a new Brigadoon? Last month, the most hopeful scenario that didn't include Apple watches or A-Rod super-serum was that Bird would come, see and conquer - that is, revisit his spring training power surge and lead this team. It meant him playing every day, regardless of the pitcher. Now, we find he is platooning with Todd Frazier, which is like riding a seesaw with Chris Carter, except that Todd gets hit by more pitches. Seriously, people, what it is with Todd Frazier that has us waiting at the altar? For the record, in 184 at bats, Carter hit .205 and 8 home runs, and was stuffed in a bottle and put out with the Japanese tide. As a Yankee, in 142 at bats, Frazier has 7 HRs and is hitting .218 - and he's inconsistent in the field - yet when he steps to the plate, the YES announcers act as if Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend. Why are still running with this guy? Miguel Andujar is tearing down fences in Scranton, and he's not going to get so much as the light of day in 2017. They'll tell us that Andujar's glove isn't ready, but I'm still smarting from Frazier's two-error inning the other day, which - like everything else about the guy - seems to disappear into the memory hole by his next at bat.And we keep waiting for somebody to rise in the bullpen and save this team. Well, the fact is, we're 140 games into the season, and Godot never came. We can sit here in the pumpkin patch until Halloween, but the vaunted farm system never provided reinforcements, and our great managerial handler of pitchers has no answers other than to do what hasn't worked. A four-pineapple loss in a four-pineapple season, and it's going to lead to a four-pineapple debacle if we're lucky enough to make the one-game Wild Card. All we're doing is proving that humankind will never invent a time machine, because otherwise, some diehard Yankee fan would have come back on July 29 and shot Cashman with a dope dart.

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I truly hope that we don't content, that we tank, tank, tank, tank-eroo all the way home and the team can all sit home watching the playoffs and suck their thumbs. Okay, I should not blame the players. Most of them, anyway. But I hope we tank. Because maybe then Randy the Blob will panic. Maybe then Cash will have nothing to hide behind. Maybe then Joey Binders will stop being the "gamer" that he is and just walk away. That would actually be the biggest, most humane thing he could do for the team - quit. And maybe then Hal the Boy King will shed a tiny tear over the lost revenue. Is there EVER any lost revenue with these schmoes? Maybe that's the problem? Anyway, I'm going on the assumption that Hal only sees the color green. Maybe he will finally, once and for all, truly, maybe just this once realize that we have to build from within. Ah hell. Who am I kidding? We really need - and this is the first season I have ever said or thought this since the early 70s - we need a new owner. We really do. This has been going on way too long and he doesn't care. Hal is starting to enter that rarified air of Mount Dolan territory. Fish stinks at the head. Screw you, mofos! Much love, and a fan forever, but a toady never.

You know, an alternative sci-fi theory to the idea that there are no time machines, is that each time you go back in one and make changes, you create another, alternate universe.

If so, that means that somewhere out there is a universe in which Big George's deal to buy the Indians went through, and his miserable clan is still stuck out in Cleveland, trying to make the Tribe a winner.

Meanwhile, Yankees owner Felix Rohatyn, gripping the arm of club CEO Bill James, just led hundreds of thousands of sobbing Bomber fans past the catafalque of Gene Michael, where he lay in state in the 94-year-old, twice-refurbished but still glorious, original Yankee Stadium.

Michael, latest in a long line of brilliant Yankees GMs including Gabe Paul, Tal Smith, Pat Gillick, and Bob Watson, was revered by fans for winning 20 of the last 24 baseball world championships.

Rohatyn assured fans that the club would be in good hands with the successor Michael has been grooming for years, Theo Epstein. He also cracked that death would probably be the only way to ever get Buck Showalter, 12-time AL manager-of-the-year, out of the Yankees dugout.

Some worried that the lavish funeral might distract right fielder Aaron Judge from his quest for the triple crown. But most observers felt that accomplishment was already sewn up, and that all that remained of interest would be whether Judge could actually top Barry Bonds' one-season home run mark, and become the first man to hit .400 since Ted Williams, in the same season.

Meanwhile, Boston Red Sox GM Brian Cashman issued a statement praising Michael, but added that he was sure Sox owner James Dolan had done what it took to get his team into the all-important, one-game, wild card playoff, and thereby make the postseason for the first time since the team's ignominious, four-game loss to the Yankees in 2004.

Hoss, that's a beautiful narrative. I got lost in it. Then I looked up and Ty Austen gets a pinch hit single to put us ahead in the ninth. And I know what that means. Bringing Robbie in for a second airtight inning is impossible for Binder Boy. Which means Chapman in the 9th. And we lose when he blows the save. Or maybe Betances blows it.

It's where Pete Alexander woke up in the Yankee Stadium bullpen in the sixth inning and said, 'Hey, they won't possibly use me today. Maybe I'll just go over for a short one at that newfangled Stan's Sports Bar across the way' As he was headed back to the Stadium, he heard the roar of the crowd celebrating Tony Lazzeri's grand slam.

It's a world where Tony Kubek, getting ready for the eighth inning Pittsburgh, absent-mindedly wiped away all the pebbles in front of him with his spikes. Where the Braves produced a shoeshine-stained ball from their dugout, and the ump growled, 'Get that outta here, it coulda come from anywhere!'

Where Scott Brosius got the out at third, then immediately whipped the ball back across the infield for two. Where Jorge trotted out to The Great One in Fenway and said in Spanish, 'They just put Roberts out there to run. Pitchout on the first pitch.'

I haven't even told you about how Sandy Amoros flipped over the low fence at Yankee Stadium chasing Berra's flyball, and the ball rolled to the wall. "Yogi's Inside-the-Park Home Run Beats Bums Again," read the headline the next day.

Or how Goose Gossage said to himself, 'Oh, why go there?' and just plunked George Brett with a fastball, en route to our 1980 World Series title.

Or when Joe D. went over to Mickey Mantle on the first day of the 1951 season and said, 'Kiddo, let's face it, the pins are almost gone and this is gonna be my last year. But I'm going to spend this season teaching you the ropes. First off: look out for the sprinkler heads out there. The bums leave 'em uncapped half the time. Second, lay off the alcohol. You don't wanna leave your game in the barroom. Stick with me, I'll show you how it's done.'